Romance reviews without the schmaltz.

Drinking at the Movies: Witness

Cleone: Mary and I decided to watch Witness a few weeks ago while we were reading Truth or Beard. There was a scene that reminded us of this scene of Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis, dancing to Sam Cook in the barn:

As always what follows is mostly a stream of conscious account spiked by drinking and pausing to tend to children who don’t care about the slow burn romance. If you aren’t familiar with the film we suggest reading the wiki page, or renting it on Amazon. It might even be on Netflix?

The movie opens on a pastoral Amish montage, people traveling on foot and by buggy, to a funeral for Rachel’s husband.

Mary: Amish style really hasn’t changed much in 30 years, except for the hair. The hair is much worse now.

Cleone: Rachel is such a biblical name, it’s such an awful name. I’m glad that it’s gone out of style.

You know, I was born in an Amish hospital. I played with amish dolls when I was little, their names were Sarah and Abraham. They didn’t have any faces. I named them myself.

More Amish life montage. Then we get a jarring cut to CARS and TRAINS, and modern things.

M: Everything was so great, until the CITY moved in .

C: Little Lucas Haas. He’s so cute.

Rachel and her son, Samuel, are off to the city for something. We missed that bit. Her father, Eli, and another guy, Daniel, are there to see them off. Daniel is making all sorts of obvious yet modest moves towards the newly widowed Rachel.

M: Man, that guy really wants to bone her.

C: But she wants to bone Harrison Ford. You know who’s hotter than 1980’s Harrison Ford?

M: No one.

Daniel follows the train for a bit, standing up on his buggy. Samuel thinks it’s hilarious.

M: Look at that nerd, on his horse. Going all fast.

C: Whenever I take the train to M’s in Harrisburg, I always see Amish.

M: If I had to wash my clothes by hand, I would never wash my clothes.

Rachel and Samuel are hanging out at some train station where we know there’s about to be a murder.

M: I like how they get to the action really quickly in this one.

C: I like how she just lets her son wander around the train station alone.

(we later figured out this was happening in Philly and not NY, we may have missed some initial plot points. Either way watch your kid, Amish lady)

Samuel heads into the mens room to do his business. While he’s in there, he watches Danny Glover and some other guy brutally stab another guy to death.

M: I forgot Danny Glover was in this!

C: Super young Danny Glover

M: And it’s a stabbing! That’s a really terrifying way to die. Let’s add that to my list of fears.

C: I think I forgot that this wasn’t just a dreamy movie about Harrison Ford hanging out with the Amish.

M: I’m picking up so much more of the plot this time around. I think the last time I watched this I was 16.

Danny Glover decides to check out the stalls and make sure they’re all empty now that he’s done killing that guy. Samuel escapes back under the previously checked stall in a move that feels way too advanced for a kid that young.

C: He’s going to the side, he’s smart. He knows how guns work

C: That kid’s real smart.

M: That’s kid’s a genius

C: Right, cause E would just die.

M: Now that I’m a mother, I need to call bullshit on this. No kid would ever be smart enough to do this,

Then Hot Cop Harrison Ford (Detective John Book) shows up to investigate.

M: There’s Harrison Ford. God he’s fucking hot.

C: Look at his back in that jacket.

M: The kid in the funny black threads!

C: He used to make cabinets.

M: Stop it.

C: You didn’t know that?? He was a carpenter before he started acting. He like makes cabinets and sands things and knows how to use a saw. He’s a Man.

M: “So he wasn’t a runt, he was big, like me?”

M & C: hahahahahhaha

M: If I could go back in time and fuck anyone, it would be 1980’s Harrison Ford.

C: Right, I would travel back in time with my 23 year old body, and fuck Harrison Ford the year I was born. Use that body for what it was meant to be used for.

Rachel isn’t thrilled that they’re being dragged into all this police nonsense. She’s throwing tons of attitude out at John.

M: Oh well there honey!

C: She’s like full of sick burns.

M: This is a totally a hate to love you/love to hate you trope!

C: They’re going to this classy bar. This is where all the black people in town are.

John and his partner head into a stereotypical 80’s “Scary Bar.” They pull a guy out and press his face up against the car window so Samuel can ID him.

M: This is how they do lineups

C: This is the unsafest thing I’ve ever seen. That is not how Detective Stabler does things.

M: All the office womens’ ovaries are exploding from seeing him with a kid.

C: Callista Flockhart is really lucky

M: Man. How did she land him?

C: I bet she’s just really nice and good in bed.

M: That giant mouth she has. I bet she can suck his dick all the way down her little bird throat.

C: Maybe we don’t put that in the review.

(whatever you all know we are perverts)

Samuel ID’s Danny Glover in the police station, John realizes the murder was a crooked cop thing, so he gets the kid out of there.

M: He see’s Glover. Harrison Ford is so perceptive.

M: He knows kids. Look how hot he is. Seriously. Look at his face.

C: He’s not a pretty boy, he’s just like, manly, and super hot.

M: I think Paul is dirty too. He shouldn’t tell him!

M: Oh, this is Philly!

M: Look at his face, he’s like, “Fucker.”

Lots of stuff happens. John tells another cop what he’s figured out. Then Danny Glover has a shoot out with him in a parking garage. John is shot. He grabs Rachel and Samuel from his sister’s house and drives all night to take them back to Pennsylvania Dutch Country. He drops them off, turns his car around, and promptly crashes it into an amazing giant bird hotel.

Rachel tends to John, he’s wounded but still incredibly hot. Lucas Haas finds Harrison Ford’s gun and Harrison catches him just before he blows his head off.

C: You can totally touch this gun as long as I’m here with you

M: That’s right. That’s the same face I’d make too Kelly McGillis.

C: We need to look up Amish and guns. Or I could just ask my mom. She’s like an Amish encyclopedia

C: Maybe they can only have big guns.

Samuel’s grandpa gives him pretty much the best gun safety/responsibility talk in history. Seriously you guys.

M: This is a really good gun talk.

C: Yeah Grandpa.

M: That house is really bright for just having lanterns.

C: All their furniture is really well made. You can take that to college with you, when you move all your furniture into your dorm room.

M: Your husbands clothes? It’s fine. He’s dead. She’s so pragmatic.

C: This jacket doesn’t have buttons. Buttons are so proud.

C: Seriously, look at his face.

M: Oh she’s looking at it. She’s flirting.

C: Amish get to date. They get to choose their own partners.

M: And she’s got a kid, so she knows where everything goes. She knows how this works.

C: I do what I want. I’m Harrison Ford.

M: Her husband must have been a runt.

C: He still looks good tho.

John starts to recover, and is wearing Amish garb and making himself useful around the community. He demands his gun back and discovers that Rachel has been hiding his bullets in the flour (good remembering Mary!).

C: “My gun.”That’s how I’d be holding the gun too.

C: He doesn’t have a beard though.

M: He would look SO GOOD with a beard now. We couldn’t even take it. We’d have to go be alone.

Harrison Ford accompanies Rachel’s father on a trip into town, to use the phone to find out how the investigation has been going. His partner tells him to stay lying low, everyone is corrupt. Harry keeps helping on the farm, doing the milking, and attending a barn raising.

Rachel is being courted by an Amish gent with awful hair, who is not Harrison Ford, so is not being rooted for as second husband material.

C: Oh it’s that guy.

M: That dick.

C: He’s the Amish Lothario.

M: “I’m much better looking than you. I make this hat look good.”

M: Look at me courting this bitch on the swing.

M: Is he just standing there watching them?

C: Yup. He’s chaperoning!

Rachel brings Harry lemonade where he’s working in the barn, he gulps it, nothing has ever been hotter as it drips down his manly neck.

M: Oh Jesus Christ.

C: Look at his neck, It’s amazing. This is basically porn. I want Harrison Ford for my second husband. He’s good at that because that’s what he did. He was a fucking carpenter.

M: Can you do anything else?

C: So much. I’m so good with my hands.

M: She’s a saucy little wench.

M: I need a lot of room in my trousers. Specifically this area.

Its the pivotal barn scene, Mary’s kids try to ruin it.

C: Why is your kid being evil at the most important part?

M: That lantern. He looks good by lantern light.

M: Harrison Ford courted women in real life. I can’t even imagine

M: This is the hottest thing that has ever happened in a movie, AND NOTHING EVEN HAPPENS.

They’re dancing by lantern light.

C: I love Sam Cooke so much. This is the most important part of the movie. He wants to kiss her so bad, but he’s showing restraint. He’s being respectful.

M: Lothario doesn’t court like this.

C: The other dude sucks at courting,

C: He doesn’t even know any Sam Cooke.

M: Shit! my dad!

M: She’s like 25!

C: She’s like 30, and widowed, and has a kid.

M: She’s in so much trouble.

M: Harrison Ford is so mad.

Text convo between C and her straight male friend:

C: Harrison ford is fucking dreamy

I: and water is wet.

M: “I have committed no sin.” But you definitely want to.

M: I totally need to read more Amish erotica. Something with actual sex, not chaste. Like the straight version of A Forbidden Rumspringa.

C: This is super sketchy. This is not proper police procedure.

M: He made the 70’s look hot.

C: He was the only one.

Barn raising.

C: It is a nice thing that they come together to build barns. They build a whole barn in one day. It takes them like 6 weeks to build a GetGo. I’m just saying, if the Amish were building our GetGos, it would be so much faster.

M: Is that Viggo Mortensen? Yes! He looks kind of hot. With no sideburns

Harrison goes to town again and calls in to his office only to be told his partner is dead, he’s really upset. In his turmoil Harrison is not enjoying people harassing the Amish. Some townie is putting ice cream on lothario’s face like a dick, but Amish Lothario can’t so anything because he’s a pacifist. Harrison is not a pacifist, he shows those townies not to mess with the Amish while he’s around.

C: I would share Harrison Ford with you. and I don’t like sharing things I’m selfish

M: Look at these Amish toys. Those are super cool. It’s like some Haba shit.

M: He fixed the bird house. He’s like, fitting in the family.

C: “Samuel, time for bed.”

M: “It’s time for mommy to go fuck someone.” That was the tone, right?

C: This is like the perfect romance novel.

M: It really is. I wish there was more (any) sex though. We should write Witness with sex.

C: She took her bonnet off.

M: She really was going to fuck him.

M: She looks really pretty here.

Rachel and Harrison Ford are running towards each other through a field, they hard core make out.

C: His hands are like the size of her head.

C: Did they have the sex and they cut away?

M: In my head they did.

C: Right. They did it all soft in the grass.

The corrupt cops show up at the farm early in the morning, toting big guns and trolling for Harrison and Lucas Haas and probably anyone else who gets in their way. They’re suited up.

M: Here come the bad guys. Gonna go assassinate this amish family

C: In their awesome leisure suits

M: Just out for a stroll, on this country lane, with our guns out.

C: Normal Like

M: There’s definitely lamps on in there. They get up at 4:30.

C: “We’re not gonna harm your boy.”

M: We’re just gonna kill him

C: He’s got the fresh milk. Don’t spill the milk! I like it when it has the cream on top. He spilled all that delicious milk.

C: He’d be like the perfect dad.

M: And the perfect husband.

C: And the guy that you make out with who brings your milk on the milk truck

M: He tried really hard to save that kids so many times.

C: He’s going to use that car as a weapon. It’s the only weapon he has

M: Except for all the axes and shit that are probably in there.

We missed the last ten minutes of Witness due to life, this happens sometimes when you have kids AND a drinking problem AND movies to watch.

Never-the-less the movie lingers on in our brains in the form of Harrison Ford obsession.